Monday, December 8, 2014

2014 Rhysling Awards coming Friday, December 12th

The 2014 Rhysling Awards, hosted by Elizabeth R. McClellan and the Science Fiction Poetry Association, honoring the best speculative poetry of 2013, will be held in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday, December 12, 2014 at 7:00 P.M. at the Goddess and the Moon, 603 8th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee, as well as being livestreamed online.

A speculative poetry-themed open mic will follow, open to any interested poets. The Rhysling Awards honor short and long form works in science fiction, fantasy, horror and slipstream poetry. The 2014 Rhysling Anthology, the annual collection of nominated works, will be publicly released at the event. Copies will be available for sale, as well as memberships to the SFPA.

The Rhysling Award nominations and selections are made by the members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, founded in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in science fiction and speculative poetry. The Rhysling Award honors poetry in two categories: short poems of 1 to 49 lines and long poems of 50 lines or longer.

The annual award is given to one (1) work in each category, and the second and third place works are also honored. The list of the 2014 nominees is available at www.sfpoetry.com/ra/rhyscand.html.
The Rhyslings are considered in the speculative fiction field to be the equivalent in poetry of the Nebula and other awards given by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America for “prose” work: achievement awards given to poets by the writing peers of their own field of literature.

The winning submissions are regularly reprinted in SFFW’s Nebula Awards Anthology. Past winners include such science fiction and fantasy notables as Ursula K. le Guin, Catherynne M. Valente, and Jane Yolen. Nominees this year have come from around the world and appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Goblin Fruit, Apex Magazine, Asimov's Science Fiction, Star*Line and Mythic Delirium. This year, Lao American writer Bryan Thao Worra had two poems nominated, "The Robo Sutra" and "Five Flavors" both in Strange Horizons.

"I think its wonderful that our community takes the time to read and consider the many fascinating approaches people take to express their imagination through poetry," said Thao Worra, who was the winner of the 2014 Elgin Award for Book of the Year.

Elizabeth R. McClellan, the 2014 Rhysling Chair and editor of the 2014 Rhysling Anthology, will be announcing the winning works and honorees, as well as emceeing the open mic to follow. For more about the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the Rhysling Awards, visit sfpoetry.com. For more about the 2014 Chair, visit elizabethrmcclellan.com.